Determining a cause of an incident based on text analytics of documents

ABSTRACT

A system for determining a cause of an incident analyzes one or more change records based on text analytics using a dictionary and rules for the analysis in order to generate an index of analyzed data that represents the one or more change records. The change records each include a change and corresponding time frame for occurrence of the change. Information from a request is applied to the index of analyzed data to determine one or more candidate causes for the incident and the corresponding time frame for occurrence of the change. A time associated with the request is correlated with the corresponding time frame for occurrence of the change to identify the one or more candidate causes in the one or more change records as causes for the incident. Embodiments of the present invention further include a method and computer program product for determining causes of an incident.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application claims priority to U.S. Nonprovisionalapplication Ser. No. 13/476,399, filed 21 May 2012 and entitled“Determining a Cause of An Incident Based on Text Analytics ofDocuments,” the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by referencein its entirety.

BACKGROUND

1. Technical Field

Present invention embodiments relate to document analysis, and morespecifically, to determining root causes of a problem or incident basedon text analytics of a document indicating occurrence of a change.

2. Discussion of the Related Art

Many issues reported by customers of a company are due to an event orchange that was initiated by the company. For example, a raw material orsupplier may have changed, the manufacturing processing line may havebeen modified, or a piece of equipment replaced. Most of the time, acustomer service representative takes a call, records the issue, andtries to solve the problem. Typically, the reported problems aredifficult to trace to a root cause due to a time lapse, a lack ofexperience or knowledge by the representative, and record keeping. Forinstance, if there is a problem that occurs due to a change inprocessing, an experienced employee may be aware of an existing or knownevent that could cause the issue. However, a new employee may not havethe same knowledge and, thus, is unable to determine the root cause.Knowing the root cause of a problem when a problem or incident occursenables a company to make informed decisions and take appropriate actionmore quickly, thereby reducing customer service and warranty costs.

Traditional approaches to solving customer service or warranty issuesrely on analysis of historical warranty claims data. Other methods relyon customer service checklists to lead a customer through a series ofquestions in order to determine a root cause. These traditional methodstend to introduce unnecessary latency into the root cause determinationor provide troubleshooting on a one-by-one basis.

BRIEF SUMMARY

According to one embodiment of the present invention, a system fordetermining a cause of an incident analyzes one or more change recordsbased on text analytics using a dictionary and rules for the analysis inorder to generate an index of analyzed data that represents the one ormore change records. The change records each include a change andcorresponding time frame for occurrence of the change. Information froma request is applied to the index of analyzed data to determine one ormore candidate causes for the incident and the corresponding time framefor occurrence of the change. A time associated with the request iscorrelated with the corresponding time frame for occurrence of thechange to identify the one or more candidate causes in the one or morechange records as causes for the incident. Embodiments of the presentinvention further include a method and computer program product fordetermining a cause of an incident in substantially the same mannerdescribed above.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic illustration of an example computingenvironment for use with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagrammatic illustration of an example module thatgenerates a root cause database index from sample documents according toan embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagrammatic illustration of an example module that analyzesa root cause database index and correlates an incident with a root causeof that incident according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a procedural flow chart illustrating a manner in which anincident query is analyzed and correlated with root causes of theincident according to an embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Present invention embodiments determine the root cause or causes of aproblem or incident (e.g., a manufacturing defect or a customer serviceproblem, etc.) by analyzing available documentation. When a new problemoccurs, a user may enter a search query into a user interface to asoftware application that acts as a front end for a database engine. Theapplication will run the necessary searches and return the results tothe user along with a correlation score. The correlation score may be araw correlation value (e.g., from 0 to 1), a scaled correlation value(e.g., from 0 to 100), or a relative correlation value (e.g., low,medium, or high). For example, ice cream may be melting prematurelyduring shipment and the first problems may have been reported starting amonth ago. The user may enter a query into the application such as “icecream is melting during shipping” and the date of the first problemreport. The application will search a database and return a causationreport that contains a potential cause and a correlation score. Thecausation report may indicate that ice cream individual packaging waschanged two months ago with a “medium” correlation score, and that the150 unit bulk ice cream shipping containers were changed last month witha “high” correlation score. The bulk packaging change may be given thehigher score because the corresponding change is closer to when theactual problems started being reported (e.g., starting a month ago,etc.).

Present invention embodiments employ text analytics for text analysis ofdocuments in order to generate a database index that may be searched tofind a root cause of an incident. Initially, an events and causesdictionary (or database) is developed. The dictionary contains a list ofevents and possible causes that may occur in a given time frame. Forinstance, if ice cream packaging is changed, issues may occur (e.g.,with ice cream leaking or melting, packages damaged, etc.) within 3weeks or up to 3 months (e.g., since it takes 3 weeks to distribute icecream from the factory to the store shelf and ice cream usually expires3 months from the production date). Thus, dictionary entries may be inthe form of a noun, verb, and list of causes. For example, the nouncould be “package”, the verb could be “changed” or “replaced” and thecauses may be any result that may occur when a package is changed (e.g.,“leaking,” “melting,” “premature spoilage”, etc.)

Documents that indicate actual changes are analyzed using text analyticsto generate a database index. These documents (referred to herein aschange list records) may be in the form of formal change logs, emails,or any other documents that can be analyzed using the events and causesdictionary. Change list records are company records that list the actualchanges and the dates that these changes were implemented, and may be inthe form of structured or unstructured data. For example, if a companyintroduces new flavor of ice cream or changes packaging material, therecords contain details on these changes. The change list may includethe event, the date of change, and any other notes made by companyemployees. A query is received and applied against the database index toascertain a root cause of an incident.

An example environment for use with present invention embodiments isillustrated in FIG. 1. Specifically, the environment includes one ormore server systems 10, and one or more client or end-user systems 14.Server systems 10 and client systems 14 may be remote from each otherand communicate over a network 12. The network may be implemented by anynumber of any suitable communications media (e.g., wide area network(WAN), local area network (LAN), Internet, Intranet, etc.).Alternatively, server systems 10 and client systems 14 may be local toeach other, and communicate via any appropriate local communicationmedium (e.g., local area network (LAN), hardwire, wireless link,Intranet, etc.)

Client systems 14 enable users to provide information and queriesrelated to incidents (e.g., documents for document collections,documents for analysis to determine root cause information, etc.) toserver systems 10 to determine root cause information pertaining tochanges at a company or other entity. In another example, theinformation and queries may be provided directly to the server. Theserver systems include a changelist analytics module 16 to generate anindex of analyzed data (e.g., a root cause database index), and a rootcause correlation module 20 to analyze the root cause database indexbased on a user query. A database system 18 may store variousinformation for the analysis (e.g., generated root cause databases andindexes, sample collections of documents, search results and correlationscores, etc.). The database system may be implemented by anyconventional or other database or storage unit, may be local to orremote from server systems 10 and client systems 14, and may communicatevia any appropriate communication medium (e.g., local area network(LAN), wide area network (WAN), Internet, hardwire, wireless link,Intranet, etc.). The client systems may present a graphical user (e.g.,GUI, etc.) or other interface (e.g., command line prompts, menu screens,etc.) to solicit information from users pertaining to the problem foranalysis, and may provide reports including analysis results (e.g., textanalytics, root causes, correlation scores, etc.).

Server systems 10 and client systems 14 may be implemented by anyconventional or other computer systems preferably equipped with adisplay or monitor, a base (e.g., including at least one processor 15,one or more memories 35 and/or internal or external network interfacesor communications devices 25 (e.g., modem, network cards, etc.)),optional input devices (e.g., a keyboard, mouse or other input device),and any commercially available and custom software (e.g.,server/communications software, changelist analytics module, root causecorrelation module, browser/interface software, etc.).

Alternatively, one or more client systems 14 may perform root causeanalysis when operating as a stand-alone unit. In a stand-alone mode ofoperation, the client system stores or has access to the data (e.g.,root causes, correlation scores, sample collections of documents, etc.),and includes changelist analytics module 16 and root cause correlationmodule 20 to perform the root cause analysis on documents. The graphicaluser (e.g., GUI, etc.) or other interface (e.g., command line prompts,menu screens, etc.) solicits information from a corresponding userpertaining to root cause analysis, and may provide reports includinganalysis results (e.g., text analytics, root causes, correlation scores,etc.).

Changelist analytics module 16 and root cause correlation module 20 mayinclude one or more modules or units to perform the various functions ofpresent invention embodiments described below. The various modules(e.g., changelist analytics module, root cause correlation module, etc.)may be implemented by any combination of any quantity of software and/orhardware modules or units, and may reside within memory 35 of the serverand/or client systems for execution by processor 15.

An example block diagram of changelist analytics module 16 to generatepotential root cause data from sample documents (e.g., via server system10 and/or client system 14) according to an embodiment of the presentinvention is illustrated in FIG. 2. Changelist analytics module 16receives changelist records 210 and events and causes dictionary 220.Initially, events and causes dictionary 220 is developed based oninformation from the company or other entity, and may be stored withindatabase system 18. By way of example, the dictionary is developed usingan Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA) (e.g., theApache UIMA which is maintained by the Apache Software Foundation and isan open source software platform). UIMA is designed to provide aframework and common foundation for discovering knowledge that ispresent in a wide variety of information sources (e.g., web pages,emails, journal articles, etc.). The various techniques and modulesdescribed herein may be developed within the UIMA framework (e.g.,analytics module 16 and root cause correlation module 20 may beimplemented as one or more UIMA applications that use database system 18for storage and retrieval). It should be understood that any textanalytic technologies similar to UIMA may be employed to accomplish thetechniques described herein. For example, other off-the-shelf analyticsapplications or custom software and/or hardware may be used instead of,or in addition to, UIMA.

Unstructured data contained in text documents (e.g., reports, emails,web pages, etc.) contain valuable information which is often missed instandard text analysis. Most of the data in an enterprise, intelligence,and other information driven environments is of an unstructured nature.This data can be used effectively and efficiently by creating some formof structured view of the documents (e.g., for advanced searching ordata mining). Unstructured information management (UIM) applicationsextract concepts of interest, relations between them, or facts.

Accordingly, dictionary 220 is developed to contain items of interest tobe mined from the underlying data (e.g., a list of events or incidentsand possible causes in a given time frame). The dictionary entries maybe in the form of a noun, verb, list of causes, and a causation timeframe. The dictionary may also contain other data such as parts ofspeech (e.g., adjectives, adverbs, etc.), phrases, etc. By way ofexample, ice cream packaging may be changed, and an issue may arise(e.g., ice cream leaking or melting, packages damaged, etc.) within 3weeks or up to 3 months (e.g., since it takes 3 weeks to distribute icecream from the factory to the store shelf and ice cream usually expires3 months from the production date). Accordingly, a correspondingdictionary entry may include a noun of “package”, a verb of “changed” or“replaced”, and causes that may be any result that may occur when apackage is changed (e.g., “leaking,” “melting,” and “prematurespoilage”, etc.) The associated causation time frame may be “3 monthsfrom the manufacturing date.”

The dictionary may also contain more complex grammar-like constructs.For example, the dictionary may contain noun alternatives and plurals,verb conjugations, and conjunctions or other Boolean terms (e.g., not,or, and, and exclusive-or). For example, the noun may be “package” andthe alternatives are “packages,” “container,” and “containers,” wherethere is an implied “or” construct when alternatives are provided. Thus,the noun may be “package”, “packages”, “container”, or “containers”. Theprimary verb may be “leak” with conjugations of “leaks,” “leaked,” and“leaking,” or “change,” with conjugations of “changed” or “changing.”Note that the verb “leak” was mentioned above with regard to causation.Thus, verbs may be used both for a changelist and for causation, as willbe explained below.

Furthermore, other more complex constructs may be used. For example,changes may be “package replaced but not changed” or “container upgradedand supplier replaced and container materials not changed”, whileincidents or events may be “package leaking and not rupturing” or“container subject to damage.” As can be seen from the few examplespresented that a wide variety of grammatical constructions may be usedwithin the dictionary. These grammatical constructions can be combinedto form rules. An example data rule entry is shown in Table 1 below:

TABLE 1 Example event and causes rule entries for an ice cream productRule Con- Verb Con- Then # If (noun) nector (event) nector (cause) Timeframe 1 Package or Changed None Leak Within 3 Container Melt months ofSpoil test date 2 Filling None Replaced but not Spoil Within 3 machineRepaired months of test date

In this example, rules in the table utilize one or more dictionariesthat have features for events, causes, and timeframes. Rule #1 indicatesthat if an ice cream package or container is changed, a correlation withthe change may result in leaking, melting, or spoilage when the resultoccurs within three months of the test date (e.g., the manufacturingdate). Rule #2 indicates a condition where an ice cream filling machinehas been replaced but not repaired and that may result in spoilagewithin the specified time frame of three months of the test date.Accordingly, the dictionary when applied to source changelist documentscan be used to generate a database of analyzed changes within a companyor other entity.

Changelist records 210 (e.g., emails, reports, formal change records,internal documents, etc.) are received. The changelist records areanalyzed by text analytics module 230 (e.g., via a server system 10and/or client system 14) using events and causes dictionary 220. Thetext from changelist records 210 is extracted and parsed, and patternmatching is performed based on the events and causes (UIMA) dictionary.Text analytics module 230 may use text analysis engines (TAE) (alsoreferred to as analysis engines or annotators) that implement the actualanalysis algorithms. Annotators create annotations that includemeta-data information associated with a particular location or span inthe original unstructured data or document. Examples of annotations thatmay be applied to text documents include annotations that identifysequences of characters as an entity name, a telephone number, flavor ofice cream, product size, product serial number, etc. The text analysisengines (TAE) may be designed to interpret and account for commonspelling errors, grammatical mistakes, and punctuation. In addition,advanced text analysis engine (TAE) functions may include identificationof relationships between items or major topics discussed in the text.

The text analytics produce a data structure (that may be referred to asa Common Analysis Structure (CAS)) in which all the informationbelonging to a document is logically bundled. Essentially, the CommonAnalysis Structure (CAS) is an in-memory representation of the documentand includes content and metadata information in the form ofannotations. The Common Analysis Structure (CAS) is supplied by asequence of annotators that each add meta-data based on the annotatorlogic. Subsequent annotators can build on the results from priorannotators in a flow. Plural Common Analysis Structures (CAS) are storedas an index 240 that is available for semantic searches as describedbelow. The index may be stored as Extensible Markup Language (XML) tagsthat correspond to the structure of the original changelist record, oras data pointers into a document (e.g., a relative data address, aparagraph number, line number, character position, etc.). Accordingly,the index in one example may be a record that contains a change, achange date, potential defect with a corresponding cause, and a tag orpointer to the relevant portion of the source document. Thus, the indexforms an abbreviated representation of the source document and datebased metadata in searchable form and based on events and causesdictionary 220.

Discovered analysis results represented in the Common Analysis Structure(CAS) can be used in data mining applications or to implement advancedsearch capabilities in search engines as described below. The flow ofchangelist records through a UIMA pipeline may be analyzed by pluralText Analysis Engines (TAE) that aggregate multiple annotators. Thus,the index is a basic UIMA component that receives the Common AnalysisStructures (CAS) after all Text Analysis Engines (TAE) in a flow havecompleted processing.

Changelist analytics module 16 provides a text analysis platform thatacquires and transforms the changelist records, performs basiclinguistic processing (including language determination andtokenization), and stores the analyzed documents and extractedinformation in a search index for semantic search. The analyzeddocuments and extracted information may further be stored in arelational database for data mining on the discovered information.

An example block diagram of root cause correlation module 20 to use anindex of analyzed changelist records and generate a list of root causesand their corresponding correlation score (e.g., via a server system 10and/or client system 14) according to an embodiment of the presentinvention is illustrated in FIG. 3. Initially, a user entered query isreceived at block 310. The query may be entered via a user interface ormay be selected from a list of “canned” or predesigned queries. In thisregard, the user may opt to store any given query for future use. Forexample, the user may enter the product, associated product information(e.g., serial number, model, etc.), date manufactured, date shipped,defect date, and the defect. By way of example with respect to icecream, the query may include a product of ice cream, a size of 1.5quarts, a flavor of vanilla, a ship date of three weeks ago, a defect ofpackage leaking, and a defect date of within the last week.

Once the query is received, root cause correlation module 20 searchesindex 240 using text analytics as described above. Alternatively, thesearch may be conducted via standard database search techniques orwithin the UIMA framework. Any matches to the received search query arereturned and stored at block 320. The search results may further containinformation from the annotations that enable the user to retrieve theoriginal source documents to obtain additional information about thechanges that are part of the corresponding changelist record.

Root cause correlation module 20 determines a correlation value or scorebased on a test date (e.g., the event or incident date, a current date,etc.) at block 330. The correlation may be based on a test date incomparison to time frames associated with events or incidents stored indictionary 220 and annotated in index 240. In some instances, theproblem may not have come to the attention of the appropriate personnel.Thus, the current date may not be appropriate for analysis, and theproblem report date or event date is used for comparison. For example,if a company receives a complaint about ice cream melting four weeksafter the packaging was changed, there is a high correlation of thisevent or complaint with a package change event. However, if the companyreceives the same complaint a year after the packaging was changed, thecorrelation value is low since the complaint is received outside of anexpected time frame.

When a correlation exists, root cause correlation module 20 returns alist of possible or potential root causes and their correspondingcorrelation score at block 340. The correlation score may be a rawcorrelation value (e.g., from 0 to 1), a scaled correlation value (e.g.,from 0 to 100), a relative correlation value (e.g., low, medium, orhigh). An example algorithm for determining a correlation score can befound in the pseudo-code in Listing 1, below:

Listing 1 Example correlation score pseudo-code if(within_specified_timeframe) then if (search_match = 80% to 100%) then{correlation_score = 1.0}; else if (search_match = 60% up to 80%) then{correlation_score = 0.9}; else if (search_match = 40% up to 60%) then{correlation_score = 0.8}; else if (search_match = 20% up to 40%) then{correlation_score = 0.7}; else if (search_match = 0% up to 20%)  then{correlation_score = 0.6}; else if (not_within_specified_timeframe) thenif (search_match = 80% to 100%) then {correlation_score = 0.5}; else if(search_match = 60% up to 80%) then {correlation_score = 0.4}; else if(search_match = 40% up to 60%) then {correlation_score = 0.3}; else if(search_match = 20% up to 40%) then {correlation_score = 0.2}; else if(search_match = 1% up to 20%)  then {correlation_score = 0.1}; else{correlation_score = 0.0};

The above algorithm is one way of determining a correlation value. Thestatistical calculation of the correlation value will be based on thetimeframe of the event and how closely the request matches thechangelist events (e.g., lemma match, synonyms, etc.). The example inListing 1 uses a search_match condition, a within_specified_timeframecondition, and a not_within_specified_timeframe condition. Thesearch_match condition indicates the percentage of search criteria thatmatch. The search criteria use exact matching, phrase matching, partialmatching, negative matching, etc., or use matches that are not exact(e.g., due to spelling or grammar errors that are not accounted for inthe dictionary).

The algorithm in Listing 1 sets the correlation score based on thepercentage of search criteria that match and the date of the query beingwithin a specified timeframe (e.g., a correlation score of 1.0 for asearch match of 80%-100%; a correlation score of 0.9 for a search matchof 60%-80%; a correlation score of 0.8 for a search match of 40%-60%; acorrelation score of 0.7 for a search match of 20%-40%; and acorrelation score of 0.6 for a search match of 0%-20%). If the date ofthe query is not a specified timeframe, the correlation score is set tolower values (e.g., a correlation score of 0.5 for a search match of80%-100%; a correlation score of 0.4 for a search match of 60%-80%; acorrelation score of 0.3 for a search match of 40%-60%; a correlationscore of 0.2 for a search match of 20%-40%; and a correlation score of0.1 for a search match of 1%-20%). Otherwise, the correlation score isset to zero.

The algorithm in Listing 1 can be used to generate a correlation reportbased on a query. An example correlation report is shown in Table 1below:

TABLE 2 Example query results Source changelist Query Result Correlationdocument summary number Result Score location Ice 1 Packaging change 0.9S:/documents/ cream, five week ago (high) change records/ 1.5 quart,daily report melting 123.doc 2 Manufacturing 0.1 S:/documents/ equipmentchange (very low) change records/ six months ago plant log 234.doc

The results shown in Table 2 indicate that the most likely (correlationscore of 0.9) cause of ice cream melting is a packaging change thatoccurred five weeks ago. Result number 2 provides a correlation score of0.1, and indicates that the manufacturing equipment change that occurredsix months ago may have an effect on causing ice cream packages to leak,but that effect is unlikely.

Any of the source documents (changelist records 210), UIMA dictionary220, index 240, search results of block 320, correlation scores and rootcause lists of block 340 may be stored within database system 18, orlocally on the server and/or client system performing the analysis. Oncethe results (e.g., root causes and corresponding correlation scores) aredetermined, the results may be compared and appropriate correctiveaction may be performed within the company (e.g., revert to previouspackaging composition or manufacturer, product formulation, equipment,etc., or provide further changes or corrections to the previouslymodified manufacturing line).

A manner in which changelist analytics module 16 and root causecorrelation module 20 (e.g., via a server system 10 and/or client system14) analyzes changelists and a request (query) to provide root causesand correlation scores according to an embodiment of the presentinvention is illustrated in FIG. 4. Specifically, one or more changerecords associated with candidate causes are analyzed based on textanalytics using dictionaries and rules for the analysis in order togenerate an index of analyzed data that represents the one or morechange records at step 410. The change records each include a change andcorresponding time frame for occurrence of the change. Information froma request or query is applied to the index of analyzed data to determineone or more candidate causes for the incident and the corresponding timeframe for occurrence of the change at step 420. A time associated withthe request is correlated with the corresponding time frame foroccurrence of the change to identify the one or more candidate causes inthe one or more change records as causes for the incident at step 430.

Techniques further include provision where the text analytics includesdictionaries based on the UIMA architecture and may include rules and anindex of analyzed data that are also based on the UIMA architecture. Anoff-the-shelf text analytics suite or a custom text analytics suite maybe employed instead of, or in addition to, UIMA. A correlating score maybe computed and the one or more candidate causes with a highestcorrelation score is identified as a most likely cause for the incident.Further, correlating may include a time associated with the requestcomprising a time of the incident, a current time, or a date entered bya requester.

The index of analyzed data may include annotations referencing the oneor more change records, extensible markup language (XML) representationsof the one or more change records, and/or metadata configured to provideadditional change record information of applying information from therequest.

It will be appreciated that the embodiments described above andillustrated in the drawings represent only a few of the many ways ofimplementing embodiments for determining a cause of an incident based ontext analytics of documents.

The environment of the present invention embodiments may include anynumber of computer or other processing systems (e.g., client or end-usersystems, server systems, etc.) and databases or other repositoriesarranged in any desired fashion, where the present invention embodimentsmay be applied to any desired type of computing environment (e.g., cloudcomputing, client-server, network computing, mainframe, stand-alonesystems, etc.). The computer or other processing systems employed by thepresent invention embodiments may be implemented by any number of anypersonal or other type of computer or processing system (e.g., desktop,laptop, PDA, mobile devices, etc.), and may include any commerciallyavailable operating system and any combination of commercially availableand custom software (e.g., browser software, communications software,server software, changelist analytics module, root cause correlationmodule, etc.). These systems may include any types of monitors and inputdevices (e.g., keyboard, mouse, voice recognition, etc.) to enter and/orview information.

It is to be understood that the software (e.g., changelist analyticsmodule, root cause correlation module, etc.) of the present inventionembodiments may be implemented in any desired computer language andcould be developed by one of ordinary skill in the computer arts basedon the functional descriptions contained in the specification and flowcharts illustrated in the drawings. Further, any references herein ofsoftware performing various functions generally refer to computersystems or processors performing those functions under software control.The computer systems of the present invention embodiments mayalternatively be implemented by any type of hardware and/or otherprocessing circuitry.

The various functions of the computer or other processing systems may bedistributed in any manner among any number of software and/or hardwaremodules or units, processing or computer systems and/or circuitry, wherethe computer or processing systems may be disposed locally or remotelyof each other and communicate via any suitable communications medium(e.g., LAN, WAN, Intranet, Internet, hardwire, modem connection,wireless, etc.). For example, the functions of the present inventionembodiments may be distributed in any manner among the variousend-user/client and server systems, and/or any other intermediaryprocessing devices. The software and/or algorithms described above andillustrated in the flow charts may be modified in any manner thataccomplishes the functions described herein. In addition, the functionsin the flow charts or description may be performed in any order thataccomplishes a desired operation.

The software of the present invention embodiments (e.g., changelistanalytics module, root cause correlation module, etc.) may be availableon a recordable or computer useable medium (e.g., magnetic or opticalmediums, magneto-optic mediums, floppy diskettes, CD-ROM, DVD, memorydevices, etc.) for use on stand-alone systems or systems connected by anetwork or other communications medium.

The communication network may be implemented by any number of any typeof communications network (e.g., LAN, WAN, Internet, Intranet, VPN,etc.). The computer or other processing systems of the present inventionembodiments may include any conventional or other communications devicesto communicate over the network via any conventional or other protocols.The computer or other processing systems may utilize any type ofconnection (e.g., wired, wireless, etc.) for access to the network.Local communication media may be implemented by any suitablecommunication media (e.g., local area network (LAN), hardwire, wirelesslink, Intranet, etc.).

The system may employ any number of any conventional or other databases,data stores or storage structures (e.g., files, databases, datastructures, data or other repositories, etc.) to store information(e.g., documents, document collections, root cause lists, andcorrelation scores, annotations, analyzed data, etc.). The databasesystem may be implemented by any number of any conventional or otherdatabases, data stores or storage structures (e.g., files, databases,data structures, data or other repositories, etc.) to store information(e.g., documents, document collections, root cause lists, andcorrelation scores, etc.). The database system may be included within orcoupled to the server and/or client systems. The database systems and/orstorage structures may be remote from or local to the computer or otherprocessing systems, and may store any desired data (e.g., documents,document collections, root cause lists, and correlation scores, etc.).Further, the various tables (e.g., root cause lists, and correlationscores, etc.) may be implemented by any conventional or other datastructures (e.g., files, arrays, lists, stacks, queues, etc.) to storeinformation, and may be stored in any desired storage unit (e.g.,database, data or other repositories, etc.).

Present invention embodiments may be utilized for determining anydesired potential cause information (e.g., changes, modifications,replacements, any combinations thereof, etc.) from any type of document(e.g., speech transcript, web or other pages, word processing files,spreadsheet files, presentation files, electronic mail, multimedia,etc.) containing text in any written language (e.g. English, Spanish,French, Japanese, etc.). The potential cause information may pertain toany type of company or entity operations (e.g., manufacturing, internalprocesses and workflows, hardware and software product development,etc.).

The correlation scores may be determined in any fashion, and include anydesired value within any desired value range. For example, thecorrelation score may be the actual date difference, or convert anactual date difference to any desired value range (e.g., 0-100, 0-10,0-1, etc.) via any conventional or other techniques (e.g.,normalization, look-up table, mathematical formula or operation, etc.).Any quantity of analysis techniques may be applied to documents togenerate the index of analyzed data and root cause reports. The analysistechniques may measure any desired quantity of characteristics, wherethe measurements may be combined in any fashion to produce thecorrelation score (e.g., average or weighted average, summation, etc.).Any quantity of causes and correlation scores may be compared to producea most likely causal match.

The dictionaries may be developed in any manner (e.g., manuallydeveloped, based on a template, etc.) and contain any type of data(names, nouns, verbs, numbers, etc.) and/or rules (e.g., grammatical,lexical, or mathematical constructs). The dictionaries may be designedin any manner that facilitates tagging or document analysis by ananalysis engine or annotator. The dictionary may be in any format (e.g.,plain text, relational database tables, nested XML code, etc.). Anynumber of dictionaries may be used for analysis.

Text analytics may be performed using any manner of text analysis (e.g.,linguistic, semantic, statistical, machine learning, natural languageprocessing, etc.). Text analytics may use any form of informationretrieval and lexical analysis to analyze word frequency distributions,and perform pattern recognition, tagging, annotation, informationextraction, and/or data mining. Text analysis techniques may includelink and association analysis, visualization, and predictive analytics.

The present invention embodiments may employ any number of any type ofuser interface (e.g., Graphical User Interface (GUI), command-line,prompt, etc.) for obtaining or providing information (e.g., documents,document collections, root causes, queries, etc.), where the interfacemay include any information arranged in any fashion. The interface mayinclude any number of any types of input or actuation mechanisms (e.g.,buttons, icons, fields, boxes, links, etc.) disposed at any locations toenter/display information and initiate desired actions via any suitableinput devices (e.g., mouse, keyboard, etc.). The interface screens mayinclude any suitable actuators (e.g., links, tabs, etc.) to navigatebetween the screens in any fashion.

The report may include any information arranged in any fashion, and maybe configurable based on rules or other criteria to provide desiredinformation to a user (e.g., text analytics, correlation scores, rootcause information pertaining to the entered query, etc.).

The present invention embodiments are not limited to the specific tasksor algorithms described above, but may be utilized for determining rootcause or other information (with identifiable characteristics) for anytypes of documents.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particularembodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. Asused herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended toinclude the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicatesotherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises”,“comprising”, “includes”, “including”, “has”, “have”, “having”, “with”and the like, when used in this specification, specify the presence ofstated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/orcomponents, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or moreother features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components,and/or groups thereof.

The corresponding structures, materials, acts, and equivalents of allmeans or step plus function elements in the claims below are intended toinclude any structure, material, or act for performing the function incombination with other claimed elements as specifically claimed. Thedescription of the present invention has been presented for purposes ofillustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive orlimited to the invention in the form disclosed. Many modifications andvariations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the artwithout departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. Theembodiment was chosen and described in order to best explain theprinciples of the invention and the practical application, and to enableothers of ordinary skill in the art to understand the invention forvarious embodiments with various modifications as are suited to theparticular use contemplated.

As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, aspects of the presentinvention may be embodied as a system, method or computer programproduct. Accordingly, aspects of the present invention may take the formof an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment(including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or anembodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may allgenerally be referred to herein as a “circuit,” “module” or “system.”Furthermore, aspects of the present invention may take the form of acomputer program product embodied in one or more computer readablemedium(s) having computer readable program code embodied thereon.

Any combination of one or more computer readable medium(s) may beutilized. The computer readable medium may be a computer readable signalmedium or a computer readable storage medium. A computer readablestorage medium may be, for example, but not limited to, an electronic,magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system,apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. Morespecific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer readablestorage medium would include the following: an electrical connectionhaving one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, arandom access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasableprogrammable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber,a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storagedevice, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of theforegoing. In the context of this document, a computer readable storagemedium may be any tangible medium that can contain, or store a programfor use by or in connection with an instruction execution system,apparatus, or device.

A computer readable signal medium may include a propagated data signalwith computer readable program code embodied therein, for example, inbaseband or as part of a carrier wave. Such a propagated signal may takeany of a variety of forms, including, but not limited to,electro-magnetic, optical, or any suitable combination thereof. Acomputer readable signal medium may be any computer readable medium thatis not a computer readable storage medium and that can communicate,propagate, or transport a program for use by or in connection with aninstruction execution system, apparatus, or device.

Program code embodied on a computer readable medium may be transmittedusing any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless,wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc., or any suitable combination ofthe foregoing.

Computer program code for carrying out operations for aspects of thepresent invention may be written in any combination of one or moreprogramming languages, including an object oriented programming languagesuch as Java, Smalltalk, C++ or the like and conventional proceduralprogramming languages, such as the “C” programming language or similarprogramming languages. The program code may execute entirely on theuser's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alonesoftware package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remotecomputer or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latterscenario, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computerthrough any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or awide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an externalcomputer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet ServiceProvider).

Aspects of the present invention are described with reference toflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus(systems) and computer program products according to embodiments of theinvention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchartillustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in theflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented bycomputer program instructions. These computer program instructions maybe provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, specialpurpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus toproduce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via theprocessor of the computer or other programmable data processingapparatus, create means for implementing the functions/acts specified inthe flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computerreadable medium that can direct a computer, other programmable dataprocessing apparatus, or other devices to function in a particularmanner, such that the instructions stored in the computer readablemedium produce an article of manufacture including instructions whichimplement the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks.

The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer,other programmable data processing apparatus, or other devices to causea series of operational steps to be performed on the computer, otherprogrammable apparatus or other devices to produce a computerimplemented process such that the instructions which execute on thecomputer or other programmable apparatus provide processes forimplementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks.

The flowchart and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate thearchitecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementationsof systems, methods and computer program products according to variousembodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in theflowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portionof code, which comprises one or more executable instructions forimplementing the specified logical function(s). It should also be notedthat, in some alternative implementations, the functions noted in theblock may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, twoblocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantiallyconcurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverseorder, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be notedthat each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, andcombinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchartillustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-basedsystems that perform the specified functions or acts, or combinations ofspecial purpose hardware and computer instructions.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method of determining aroot cause of an incident, said method comprising: analyzing, via aprocessor, one or more change records based on text analytics using adictionary and rules for the analysis in order to generate an index ofanalyzed data that represents the one or more change records in anabbreviated representation for searching, wherein the indent pertains toa defect with a manufactured product provided by an entity, and whereinthe change records each include a change implemented to operations thatproduce the manufactured product provided by the entity and acorresponding time frame for occurrence of the change; searching, via aprocessor, the index of analyzed data by applying information from arequest for the root cause of the incident to the index of analyzed datato determine one or more change records from the abbreviatedrepresentation listing changes serving as one or more candidate causesfor the incident, wherein applying the information includes: correlatingthe request with the changes listed by the one or more change recordsbased on a time associated with the request being within a specifiedtime interval of the corresponding time frame of occurrence of thechanges listed by the one or more change records, and identifying theone or more candidate causes in the one or more change records as causesfor the incident based on the correlation.
 2. The method of claim 1,wherein the text analytics include dictionaries based on one of anUnstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA), anoff-the-shelf text analytics suite, and a custom text analytics suite.3. The method of claim 1, wherein the text analytics include rules basedon one of an Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA), anoff-the-shelf text analytics suite, and a custom text analytics suite.4. The method of claim 1, wherein correlating includes computing acorrelation score for each change serving as a candidate cause for theincident that indicates a relative likelihood of the occurrence of thatchange as a cause of the incident.
 5. The method of claim 4, furthercomprising identifying the one or more candidate causes with a highestcorrelation score as a cause for the incident.
 6. The method of claim 1,wherein the time associated with the request includes at least one of atime of the incident, a current time, and a date entered by a requester.7. The method of claim 1, wherein the index of analyzed data includesone or more of annotations referencing the one or more change records,extensible markup language (XML) representations of the one or morechange records, and metadata configured to provide additional changerecord information.
 8. A system for determining a root cause of anincident, said system comprising: a computer system including at leastone processor configured to: analyze one or more change records based ontext analytics using a dictionary and rules for the analysis in order togenerate an index of analyzed data that represents the one or morechange records in an abbreviated representation for searching, whereinthe incident pertains to a defect with a manufactured product providedby an entity, and wherein the change records each include a changeimplemented to operations that produce the manufactured product providedby the entity and a corresponding time frame for occurrence of thechange; search the index of analyzed data by applying information from arequest for the root cause of the incident to the index of analyzed datato determine one or more change records from the abbreviatedrepresentation listing changes serving as one or more candidate causesfor the incident, wherein applying the information includes: correlatingthe request with the changes listed by the one or more change recordsbased on a time associated with the request being within a specifiedtime interval of the corresponding time frame of occurrence of thechanges listed by the one or more change records; and identifying theone or more candidate causes in the one or more change records as causesfor the incident based on the correlation.
 9. The system of claim 8,wherein the text analytics include dictionaries based on one of anUnstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA), anoff-the-shelf text analytics suite, and a custom text analytics suite.10. The system of claim 8, wherein the text analytics include rulesbased on one of an Unstructured Information Management Architecture(UIMA); an off-the-shelf text analytics suite, and a custom textanalytics suite.
 11. The system of claim 8, wherein correlating includescomputing a correlation score for each change serving as a candidatecause for the incident that indicates a relative likelihood of theoccurrence of that change as a cause of the incident.
 12. The system ofclaim 11, further comprising identifying the one or more candidatecauses with a highest correlation score as a cause for the incident. 13.The system of claim 8, wherein the time associated with the requestincludes at least one of a time of the incident, a current time, and adate entered by a requester.
 14. The system of claim 8, wherein theindex of analyzed data includes one or more of annotations referencingthe one or more change records, extensible markup language (XML)representations of the one or more change records, and metadataconfigured to provide additional change record information.
 15. Acomputer program product for determining a root cause of an incident,said computer program product comprising: a non-transitory computerreadable storage medium having computer readable program code embodiedtherewith, the computer readable program code comprising computerreadable program code configured to cause a processor to: analyze one ormore change records based on text analytics using a dictionary and rulesfor the analysis in order to generate an index of analyzed data thatrepresents the one or more change records in an abbreviatedrepresentation for searching, wherein the incident pertains to a defectwith a manufactured product provided by an entity, and wherein thechange records each include a change implemented to operations thatproduce the manufactured product provided by the entity and acorresponding time frame for occurrence of the change; search the indexof analyzed data by applying information from a request for the rootcause of the incident to the index of analyzed data to determine one ormore change records from the abbreviated representation listing changesserving as one or more candidate causes for the incident, whereinapplying the information includes; correlating the request with thechanges listed by the one or more change records based on a timeassociated with the request being within a specified time interval ofthe corresponding time frame of occurrence of the changes listed by theone or more change records; and identifying the one or more candidatecauses in the one or more change records as causes for the incidentbased on the correlation.
 16. The computer program product of claim 15,wherein the text analytics include dictionaries based on one of anUnstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA), anoff-the-shelf text analytics suite, and a custom text analytics suite.17. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the text analyticsinclude rules based on one of an Unstructured Information ManagementArchitecture (UIMA), an off-the-shelf text analytics suite, and a customtext analytics suite.
 18. The computer program product of claim 15,wherein correlating includes computing a correlation score for eachchange serving as a candidate cause for the incident that indicates arelative likelihood of the occurrence of that change as a cause of theincident.
 19. The computer program product of claim 18, furthercomprising identifying the one or more candidate causes with a highestcorrelation score as a cause for the incident.
 20. The computer programproduct of claim 15, wherein the time associated with the requestincludes at least one of a time of the incident, a current time, and adate entered by a requester.
 21. The computer program product of claim15, wherein the index of analyzed data includes one or more ofannotations referencing the one or more change records, extensiblemarkup language (XML) representations of the one or more change records,and metadata configured to provide additional change record information.